Sony sold Tijuana to Foxconn (Sep 2, 2009)
Plunging TV prices challenge makers; competition prompts Sony's Baja decision. Sony's decision this week to sell its flat panel television factory in Tijuana to a Taiwan-based manufacturing conglomerate shows how TV makers are looking for new ways to compete as prices continue to plunge. “I think from Sony's perspective, it has been a challenge in the U.S. market because it's so competitive,” said Paul Semenza, a senior vice president with Display Research, which follows the industry. “In certain regions like Japan, consumers really want a certain high level of quality and are willing to pay for it. In the U.S., it's a much more price-sensitive market.”

Sony Outsources Border Plant
Battered by multi-billion dollar losses, Sony Corp. has decided to outsource production at a large Tijuana factory. The Japan-based consumer electronics giant announced this week it will sell a 90 percent interest in a factory that manufactures LCD television screens to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.of Taiwan. Production at the plant will be managed by Hon Hai’s Foxconn division. The deal was given a political stamp of approval by Baja California Governor Jose Osuna Millan and other high state officials. In a Tijuana meeting earlier this week, Governor Osuna thanked Sony President Takahiro Kawamura for investing in the northern Mexican state. The National Action Party governor told Kawamura that Baja California is quite open to future dealings with Sony. After returning the appreciations, Kawamura said that Baja California has a proven track record in doing business. No details of the Sony-Foxconn agreement were immediately disclosed, but initial reports suggested that the 3,300 workers at the Tijuana factory would still have jobs. Foxconn, however, is among many electronics manufacturers that routinely outsource jobs to temporary employment agencies which don’t pay the full range of benefits. The Taiwan-based industry leader makes computers and consumer electronics for companies including Sony, Apple, Cisco, HP, Nintendo, Motorola, and Nokia.http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/ (See "Tijuana News")

Comment by Citygroup about Sony
"Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) will buy the stake in a liquid-crystal-display TV unit based in Tijuana, Mexico, and the unit’s manufacturing assets...The sale signals that Sony — which is cutting 16,000 jobs and has shut eight factories to revive its profitability as it heads into its first consecutive annual losses since its listing in 1958 — may eventually stop making TVs, said Kota Ezawa, an analyst at Citigroup Inc in Tokyo."
See also http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2009/09/02/2003452602

Sony Sells 90% Of Tijuana LCD TV Plant, Forms Strategic Alliance with Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry (Sep 2009)
Sony Insider--Sony has announced that it has agreed to form a strategic alliance with Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. (also known as Foxconn) for the production of LCD TVs in the Americas. Based on this agreement, Sony will sell to Hon Hai Group 90% of its shares in Sony Baja California and certain manufacturing assets related to Sony Baja California’s Tijuana site in Mexico, which mainly manufactures LCD TVs for the Americas region. Following the sale, Hon Hai Group will hold 90% ownership of Sony Baja California and the Sony Group will retain a 10% share. The Tijuana site will remain a key manufacturing facility of Sony LCD TVs for the Americas region. Hon Hai Group will assume employment of employees at the Tijuana site. Within its LCD TV business, Sony is concentrating internal resources towards areas that contribute to product differentiation, such as R&D, engineering and design, while also establishing a structure that enables the company to bring attractive products to market at the earliest possible opportunity. At the same time, by proactively leveraging external manufacturing resources Sony will also seek to reduce fixed costs, drive other cost reductions, improve profitability and achieve business expansion.http://www.sonyinsider.com/2009/09/01/sony-sells-90-of-tijuana-lcd-tv-plant-forms-strategic-alliance-with-taiwans-hon-hai-precision-industry/

Cancer and MaquiladorasStudy about diseases on the Mexican population at the US/Mexico border area, where about 75% of all Mexican maquiladoras are located.
"Noncommunicable diseases are also a growing concern among border populations. Mortality from all cancers combined was 62.9 per 100000 population in the Mexican border zone in 1990, compared with 50.8 in the country as a whole; mortality due to cancers of the trachea, bronchi, and lung was 70 percent higher in the border municipalities."1994 Health Conditions in the Americas. Vols. 1 and 2. Scentific publication, No. 549. Washington, D.C.: PAHO

On June 5-7, the Maquila Social Forum was held to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, a workers’ organization that has fought in defense of labor rights for two decades. There was reason for celebration—the coalition has not only managed to survive a downturn marked by economic crisis, unemployment, offenses against labor rights in Mexico, and militarization, it has also overcome internal challenges to face the new developments. New topics for reflection were opened at the forum. An example of this is the text presented here. For the first time in this rank and file workers’ organization, the subject of sexuality was discussed. The author, a young organizer with the Center of Hope for Peace and Justice in El Paso, presented a version of the following text to the participants, who revisited its themes in their conclusions and resolutions. Read also the Declaration of the Maquila Social Forum.

Foxconn workers burn down a factory
No one likes to be lied to by an employer, though few ever take that dislike as far as Foxconn workers in Mexico. Apparently a group of Foxconn employees set fire to their factory after management attempted to coerce workers into overtime labor without compensation. Foxconn’s Juarez, Mexico facility uses transportation trucks to ferry workers to and from the plant every day. Yesterday, supervisors at the plant told workers that the trucks had been delayed at a military checkpoint and instructed the employees to continue working until the trucks arrived. As it turns out, the trucks were sitting in the parking lot, presumably parked-in on purpose. It wasn’t the first time the factory had pulled a stunt like this, so the workers decided to get even. They torched the gymnasium, which is where the plant keeps all of its finished cell phones and computers. Don’t be surprised if there’s suddenly a bit of an iPhone shortage in certain parts of the country. http://www.gadgetteaser.com/2010/02/20/foxconn-workers-burn-down-a-factory/

Foxconn Blasts Worker, Media after Mexico Factory Fire
“Misleading and twisted.” That’s what Taiwanese electronics giant Hon Hai Precision is saying about coverage of a conflict with some workers at a factory in Mexico owned by its Foxconn Technology Group. Hon Hai spokesman Edmund C.A. Ding today released a statement saying that buses that usually transport workers back from the Foxconn Juarez Santa Teresa campus at the end of the night shift didn’t show up on Feb. 19. The statement said 30 people in the waiting area covered their faces with bandanas and started “spreading malicious rumors of how Foxconn would not give overtime pay for late bus to agitate the crowd.” The workers tried to prevent the bus from reaching the campus, the statement continues, and employees started a fire in a community center. The company said the incident had been planned in advance by a former employee with a “personal score to settle.” Foxconn says it will pursue legal action against the former employee only, and not any other workers involved. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/eyeonasia/archives/2010/02/foxconn_
blasts.html

Women and the Maquiladoras in Mexico
Following the termination of the Bracero program by the US government, a plan known as the Border Industrialization Program was introduced in 1965 by the Mexico government aimed at creating employment opportunities in the northern Mexican border for those seasonal agricultural workers who were previously allowed to work in the United States but now lost their job due to the cancellation of the Bracero program. At the same year, the maquiladora industry was born in Mexico. According to Kathryn Kopinak, author of the book Desert Capitalism, the meaning of the word maquiladora or maquila in short, have evolved overtime due to changing government policies that ultimately shaped the characteristics of the maquiladora industry (9). However, maquiladoras at their cores “are US subsidiaries or contract affiliates under foreign ownership; are dedicated to the assembly of components, the processing of primary materials, or both, producing either intermediate or final products; import most or all primary materials and components from the united states, and re-export the end products of the manufacturing process to the United States; are labor-intensive” (Prieto, Introduction xxiii). http://www.madarong.com/Writing/16.Women%20and%20the%20Maquiladoras%20in%20Mexico

Trabajadores de la maquila protestan ante la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT), Feb 26, 2010
The Telephone Workers’ Union of Mexico, The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras (CJM,) the Democratic Lawyers Association (ANAD), and the labor organizations, unions, and other allied organizations who are CJM members on February 22nd presented a complaint to the Freedom of Association Committee of the International Labor Organization (ILO) meeting in Mexico City. (Please see the link OIT ). The complaint focuses on violations of Mexican maquiladora workers’ right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. CJM, maquiladora workers, and CJM member organizations compiled the evidence in the complaint from cases in the maquiladora industry located on the northern border of Mexico. The cases date from 1994, the year the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. http://sdmaquila.blogspot.com/2010/03/trabajadoresas-de-la-maquila-protestan.html